Your setting is pretty interesting in giving large scale politico-economical players more attention than many others supers settings I've seen over the years. It is neat because it is the kind of threat a typical superhero really can't do that much about. Invulnerability and optic blasts are poor counters to a phone call destabilizing a country's economy and leading to civil war...

Thanks. It's notable that Miranda Iryn up there is pretty much the only villain of Thunder Woman to truly "beat" her, even if she had some help in the form of timing it alongside the attacks of some other major villains (Nemo Oudeis, the Children of Ares). I've never been especially fond of the way superhero comics/cartoons tended to deal with socio-politics and economics and the figures that eponymize such forces, most due to my own personal interest in such topics. Which is why I dug the hell out of stuff like Warren Ellis' Stormwatch run, Gruenwald's Captain America and Avengers stuff, and Aberrant, all major influences on my work here.

Heck, I suppose its as good a time as any to post my influence maps here:

Enemy (The Public Eye)- If there is one person that Miranda can conceive of as enemy number one, it is the elusive and enigmatic "information vigilante" known as the Public Eye and his (or her?) legion of copycat followers. Because of the Public Eye's absolute obsession with uncovering the truth and putting it out there for all to see, he represents the greatest potential threat to Miranda's power, and often the only way she can hold him off is by distracting him with an even more tempting secret.

Motivation (Immortality & Eternal Youth)- Miranda literally has all the money she could ever want, as is as powerful as any human could ever be without becoming a dictator of the world. But she is now an old woman, and her halcyon days of youth and beauty are far behind her now. She longs nostalgically for those times, and seeks some way of regaining her youth and living forever.

Motivation (Revenge)- For all of her power, Miranda is not above her own pettiness. Part of her reasoning for so obsessively going after Thunder Woman, besides making sure the heroine couldn't possibly be in a position to thwart her plans with Apotheos and the United States government to invade Olympus, is just simple revenge: for all the trouble she made for Derek Duvall, and for rejecting Miranda's initial offer to join her and then thwarting Miranda's attempts to manipulate and strongarm Thunder Woman into serving her regardless. That Thunder Woman was so successful at resisting her frustrated Miranda like few other things have.

Relationship (Apotheos)- Miranda is a recent associate of the immortal Lord Conrad Solomon. Solomon has promised her the immortality and youth she craves, while offering her the chance to become a goddess in the new pantheon he seeks to create. Possibly even Queen of the Gods.

Relationship (Armitage Family)- The storied family of industrialists known as the Armitage Family have been linked to Miranda for a while now. Miranda and Robert Armitage used to be a couple, and she maintains an acquaintance with Robert's son, Richard.

Relationship (Derek Duvall)- Miranda has known Derek for a long time, even before one of her companies absorbed Duvall Shippng and turned it into Consumer Advanced Merchantile. She considers him a fool who was once a a very smart, savvy businessman, but is now growing impatient with his bungling of both legitimate business operations and the relationship with Alexsei Mikhailov's Newport Bratva. Duvall's dealings with Thunder Woman are likely to be the last straw for her.

Relationship (Jessica Sinclair)- Miranda's personal secretary and confidant is one of the few people she is close to and would consider a friend. This bond is so close that Jessica can practically read Miranda's mind and know exactly what she wants and needs. And because of Miranda's age and health, Jessica is the one who does all of the footwork for her employer. For this, Miranda is eternally grateful, and she has a substantial reward for Jessica in her will, should Miranda ever perish.

Relationship (Martin Clay)- Derek Duvall's right hand man and young ambitious executive has really impressed Miranda. It's likely that when she gets rid of Derek that she will hand the reigns of CAM over to him.

Relationship (Men of Power Around the World)- Miranda's network of contacts is astounding, and she makes sure to keep as many powerful individuals tied to her as possible. Some notable figures she is familiar with are Senator Darren Lane, Canadian businessman Robert Vane, Scandinavian corporate kingpin Dominik Kaiser, Arabian Prince Tasnim al-Barr, and Russian power players Andre Beregov and Vladimir Drakon. She's even managed to worm her influence into CENTRI, all the way up to its leader, Jack Warren, although Jack would like to take down the illegal extraordinary mercenaries tied to Miranda's interests via Enhanced Tactical Solutions before he retires.

Responsibility (Iryn Clan Fortune)- Miranda is currently the matriarch of the Iryn Clan. All of its collective resources, holdings, and individual members and their safety and well being are in her hands, and must be protected even from other family members.

Responsibility (Old)- Miranda is positively ancient, and while the kind of doctors and medicine she has access to at her level has allowed her to extend her lifespan considerably while maintaining the appearance of being far younger than she actually is, she is still pretty friggin' old, and there is only so much that can be done for her nowadays. It's bad enough that Miranda cannot actually handle to stress of personally overseeing many of the plans she has laid out, and must rely on Jessica Sinclair to do the footwork for her. However, as always she has turned a weakness into a strength, by making her actual appearances so rare that when she *does* choose to personally appear for something it's regarded as a big friggin' deal, with many a brick shat.

Rivalry/Enemies (The Immaculate Court)- One of Miranda's greatest threats is the secret society of extraordinary businessmen and wealthy elites that call themselves the Immaculate Court. The members of the Court would like nothing more than to co-opt the vast resources of the Iryn fortune for their own purposes. Evangeline Xavier, "The Mistress" of the Court, in particular would like to see Miranda fall.

Rivalry/Enemies (Other Megarich Families)- As the richest woman in the world and leader of one of the richest families, Miranda must be on guard to protect her interests from those of rival groups like the Rothschilds and Rockefellers.

Secret (Criminal Connections)- Miranda has many, many ties to a variety of deep black criminal organizations in the underworld and megavillains. While these arrangements have been beneficial to her she must keep them a secret at all costs, lest her rivals and enemies see a vulnerability in the vaunted Iryn armor.

Secret (Manipulator of Nations)- Miranda's power lies party in the vast network of connections she has made in a wide variety of sectors. She has managed to successfully make entire nations, multinational megacorporations, and wealthy and powerful men subservient to her will, all without any but a handful of individuals noticing.

Miranda Iryn is the matriarch of the Iyrn Clan, a family of businessmen, bankers, and investors whose wealth goes back centuries. Miranda alone is the single wealthiest woman in the entire globe, with more money to her name than dozens of even well off nations combined. She can start and end wars on a whim, and change the tide of politics and discourse as it suits her. She may not have the powers of an extraordinary, but when you are as wealthy and well connected as she is, you don't need any.

Initially her arrival in Newport is to specifically clean up Derek Duvall's horrible handling of Consumer Advanced Merchantile after the reveal by Thunder Woman and Interceptor of Duvall's complicity in a massive conspiracy to produce and sell enhanced cyborg soldiers on the black market. But as the scandal fades away thanks to Miranda's total media control it became clear she was after something more, as she instigates a campaign to completely discredit and villainize Thunder Woman and her allies, a campaign that occurs at the same time as Samantha is separately targeted by Nemo Oudeis, the Children of Ares, and Interguard, the combined weight of these events causing Samantha to give up the mantle of Thunder Woman and willingly allow herself to be sent to Ultramax. But Miranda is not done with Thunder Woman yet, and it seems that she is in partnership with a secret organization to attack not just Thunder Woman, but Olympus and the Dodekatheon itself!

Enemy (CENTRI/Interguard)- As an international criminal mastermind who is also an extraordinary, and operating an organization of extraordinary mercenaries who traffic kidnapped extraordinaries, Nemo Oudeis and the Changeling Network are most assuredly on CENTRI's most wanted list, and Nemo and his mercenaries have repeatedly clashed with Interguard, CENTRI's group of extraordinary operatives.

Enemies (The Overseers, Infernal Empress)- Oudeis wants to destroy everything. Naturally, the Overseers of Reality and Infernal Empress were not at all about to let that happen. Oudeis' current weak state is a direct result of their intervention, and should it return to some measure of its former power, it is likely the Overseers and Empress will move against it once more.

Enemies (The Pantheons)- After Oudeis was weakened to the point of being imprisoned inside a single reality, the mythical pantheons then strode to weaken it even further. Zeus was a direct contributor to this effort, and should the pantheons of the Aetheric Realms get wind of Oudeis' return, they may choose to intervene on Earth and its universe, even if that means destroying all of reality to prevent Oudeis from completing its ascension.

Motivation (End of all Things)- "In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move." This pretty much sums up Oudeis' view of existence in a nutshell. It views existence as a "waking state," and would prefer to return to the "sleep" it enjoyed before it's existence "woke it up."

Motivation (Power and Prestige)- Nemo spent most of his life as a bottom rung minion, always desiring to take his place among the criminal elite of the world. Thanks to his possession by Oudeis, he has that, and works to maintain his new status and respect.

Motivation (Restoration)- Oudeis is in an extremely weak and vulnerable incorporeal state for a Primordial, and requires a host like Nemo in order to regain its strength. However, this is a process that will take a long time, and so for now Oudeis seeks some way of more quickly regaining its lost strength. Oudeis believes Thunder Woman may hold to the key to this quest.

Obsession (Revenge)- Oudeis seeks revenge on all of those entities responsible for its predicament. This is why Nemo Oudeis is going after Thunder Woman, as part of an elaborate scheme to draw out entities like Zeus and the Infernal Empress. However, there may be more to this plan than simple pettiness...

Relationship (Alexsei Mikhailov/Newport Bratva)- Alexsei is a frequent client of Nemo and the Changeling Network, and it was through him that Nemo first encountered Thunder Woman.

Relationship (Miranda Iryn)- Nemo has demonstrated himself to be a very capable and competent mercenary, and Miranda enjoys frequently calling upon his services to deal with various situations. For his part, Miranda is one of the few people he genuinely respects, and even Oudeis is impressed.

Relationship (Nemo and Oudeis)- Though Nemo Oudeis may appear to be one man, he is actually two separate entities sharing the same body, ostensibly working together. However, Nemo is content with becoming an elite criminal kingpin, while Oudeis greatly desires to finish what it started so long ago. It only puts up with Nemo because of its current weakness, but as it gets stronger and closer toward achieving the first steps of its planned return, it is becoming more assertive and dominant. This may eventually result in a confrontation, with Oudeis either leaving its host, or outright taking control.

Rivalry (Blackguard/Gallowglass)- As extraordinary mercenaries, the Changeling Network are direct competitors with ETS' own group of elite extraordinary mercenaries, Blackguard. Blackguard's leader, Gallowglass, has an ongoing rivalry with Nemo, and the two have clashed repeatedly.

Nemo Oudeis is really two things: one half is international criminal mastermind Nemo, the leader of the powerful extraordinary mercenary and human trafficking organization known as the Changeling Network. The other is Oudeis, the personification of the nothingness before creation, a force of pure annihilation that wishes to return everything to the way it was before, but has been increasingly reduced in power and trapped in some form of containment, with its most recent predicament courtesy of Zeus himself. But after Nemo, then little more than a shrimp of a criminal, found its containment prison on Earth and accidentally unleashed Oudeis, it made a pact with its rescuer to turn him into the master criminal he had always wanted to be, in exchange for using him as a vessel to restore itself and gain revenge upon those responsible for imprisoning it. The result was Nemo Oudeis, a dangerously cunning and savvy criminal and deadly extraordinary combatant who formed his own group of extraordinary mercenaries and set about to build his own empire. But after a chance encounter with Thunder Woman and Herakles in Newport, Oudeis is taking control, and setting about its plan for revenge through Thunder Woman. It's too bad for Samantha that he is doing this at the same time as Miranda Iryn, the Children of Ares, and CENTRI are all going after her...

Evil Neo has a pretty standard "Grab Bag" of "all the crunchy Advantages". I definitely get a "Golden Age Superman" vibe from his statline, which is more like Super-Parkour that Flying Brick stuff. The "Erase From Reality" stuff gives him a bit of a different schtick, too. I kinda like how he was just some regular criminal until he gained powers, but can slowly be wiped out by the very thing that's empowering him.

The "Superhuman Trafficking" thing seems to be an interesting plot-thread. How often does this happen?

Looking at Miranda again, I see that she used to be in a relationship with the Night Stalker! Now THAT's an interesting potential twist! I don't recall much of this Derek Duvall character (he's not in your "Mythos" page), so that's an interesting bit for me.

I definitely get a "Golden Age Superman" vibe from his statline, which is more like Super-Parkour that Flying Brick stuff.

I went for a blend of "evil martial artist" and "lightning brick" with him. Nemo Oudeis may be a powerhouse, but he fights like a martial artist, with a lot of emphasis on speed, movement, and agility over just "hitting hard" and wrestling/grappling. That's what really makes him a frustrating opponent for TW and Herakles.

I kinda like how he was just some regular criminal until he gained powers, but can slowly be wiped out by the very thing that's empowering him.

"Jumped Up Nobody" is pretty much what he is. Hell, it's right there in his name, "Nemo."

The "Superhuman Trafficking" thing seems to be an interesting plot-thread. How often does this happen?

Depends on where in the world you are, but there is a sizeable industry in exploiting extraordinaries. It'll come up in stuff related to groups like Interguard, Phalanx, and the Peacemakers.

Looking at Miranda again, I see that she used to be in a relationship with the Night Stalker! Now THAT's an interesting potential twist!

More specifically, the second one that was around for most of the middle/late 20th century. That would be back when she wasn't matriarch of the Iryn Clan, but was a serious hottie. It may be possible that Richard Armitage, the former third Night Stalker, is her son via her affair with his dad Robert.

I don't recall much of this Derek Duvall character (he's not in your "Mythos" page), so that's an interesting bit for me.

That's because his importance is really limited to stuff involving TW. He is not all that special in the larger scheme of things outside of TW's little bubble, though he is the big bad of the major arc involving Interceptor and Martin Clay.

Eh, not really. Nemo's pretty strongly anime influenced, particularly shoenen fighting series like DBZ, Yu Yu Hakusho, and so on. Very much an archetypal shoenen big bad crossed with an evil martial arts master or fighting game villain. And though I didn't explicitly base him on any specific character from it, I was pretty much channeling Hellsing and it's ridiculously awesome longcoats when I originally designed him. Those things were just awesome.

Enemy (Interceptor)- The Newport Bratva played a very bloody role in the events that created Interceptor. While she is duty bound as a law officer to bring Alexsei and his criminal organization to justice, this adds an additional, personal edge to her mission against them.

Enemy (The Night Stalker)- Newport's resident nighttime vigilante is specifically after Alexsei and the Newport Bratva. Yet another do-gooder to look out for.

Enemy (Rival Gangs)- As the top criminal in Newport, Alexsei has a lot of rivals and enemies who would like to supplant him and the Newport Bratva.

Enemy (Thunder Woman)- Thunder Woman has been a continuous thorn in Alexsei's side, and the first true challenge he has had to contend with as pakhan of Newport. That he has yet to neutralize her is a source of personal frustration for Alexsei, who fears that this might be perceived as a sign of weakness to his peers in the greater global bratva.

Identity (Alexander Mikkelsen)- Alexsei is actually more well known as Alexander Mikkelsen, the shipping magnate of Newport who helps ensure a good deal of the city's material wealth. He goes to great lengths to conceal his true name and identity, and at least make it legally difficult for anyone to prove that Alexander and Alexsei are one and the same person.

Motivation (Power & Wealth)- Since he was a child, Alexsei has sought security and safety for himself, and the best way he saw how was to be the wealthiest, toughest guy in the neighborhood. His current status is a direct result of pursuing this philosophy.

Responsibility (Image)- Alexsei, at least in his guise of Alexander Mikkelsen, likes to be seen as a man of taste and culture, although the truth is that he can get by without a lot of those things. As far as he is concerned, the appearance matters more than the reality.

Alexsei Mikhailov is one of Thunder Woman's earliest adversaries, a result of Samantha embracing her heroic persona and choosing to expand her activity beyond merely thwarting Hera's latest attacks on her. To Newport and most of the world he is Alexander Mikkelsen, the owner and operator of Archangel Shipping, Newport's primary source of goods and supplies, and a noted multimillionaire philanthropist. But what only a few realize is that he is actually Alexsei Mikhailov, the pakhan (godfather) of the Newport Bratva, aka, the Russian Mafia, and in general is the top criminal in Newport and its surrounding areas. He is a frequent client of "professional" villains like Helregin and the Technomaster, and it was his hiring of Helregin to deal with Thunder Woman that introduced the two to one another. He is also heavily connected to Derek Duvall and Consumer Advanced Mercantile, and was involved in Duvall's illegal cybernetic soldier conspiracy that created Interceptor. Even as Thunder Woman's rogues gallery and the scale of her adventures has grown, Alexsei continues to remain a thorn in her side and a constant reminder of the persistence of very human kinds of evil.

Yessssssssss!!! This thread is back! I'm digging this guy on a few levels - he's a better fighter than most "crimeboss" characters are, his double-identity is a wrinkle, and him being Russian is unusual in a genre more devoted to Mafiosi. His personal thing with Interceptor can lead somewhere, too.

A perfectly-accep "Early Boss Character", and one that can continually vex the hero, because he can't just be punched away.